The present invention relates generally to telecommunications call processing and more particularly to caller identification and call waiting features.
Telecommunications service providers typically offer services that attempt to provide customers with information that enables them to determine whether or not to accept a call before answering the call. Among these services that provide such information is caller identification (“Caller ID”) and Call waiting. Standard Caller ID services generally provide a customer with an indication of who is calling without requiring the customer to answer the call. These systems typically retrieve information about the calling party from a database and provide that information to the called party. Customer premise equipment (CPE) in the form of a display device is generally used to provide the called party with a visual readout of the name and/or telephone number associated with the calling party.
However, the effectiveness of Caller ID systems can be reduced due to a number of different occurrences. One such occurrence is the inability of a service provider to provide the standard Caller ID information for a particular incoming call. This may occur if the Caller ID information is blocked or the call is marked Private by the calling party, or if the Caller ID information is unavailable or incomplete.
Call waiting services generally notify a customer that is busy on a previous call that a current call has been placed to the customer. Call waiting services commonly utilize an audible tone that is transmitted to the customer, to notify the customer that the current call is waiting. When the customer is notified that the current call is waiting, the customer can decide whether or not to suspend the previous call to take the current call. Accordingly, information about the current call aids in the customer's decision.
The effectiveness of Caller ID systems is limited when the called party receives a call waiting call. Some systems are configured to provide Caller ID information to the called party for the call waiting call. However, if the system is unable to provide the information for any of the reasons mentioned above, the called party has no way of identifying the source of the Call Waiting call.
When the standard Caller ID information cannot be provided, the called party is not adequately informed about who is calling and cannot determine whether or not to accept the incoming call before answering the call. For call waiting calls, this becomes particularly important because the called party must interrupt the ongoing call to answer the Call Waiting call. Because the effectiveness of Caller ID systems is greatly reduced when information cannot be provided, an improved system and method are needed for providing caller identification information that overcome these deficiencies.
Patent application Ser. No. 09/122,484, filed Jul. 24, 1998 and commonly assigned to the assignee of the present application, is incorporated herein by reference. This patent application discloses a method and system for providing a called party with audible caller identification information when standard caller identification information cannot be provided. When standard caller identification information cannot be provided, the call is blocked and a request for audible caller identification information is transmitted to the calling party. The audible information is subsequently transmitted to the called party.
This method and system are effective at responding to a first incoming call. However, calls subsequently received when the called party is busy in an ongoing call are either blocked by the current call or may be handled by standard call waiting systems. The standard call waiting system presents standard caller identification information. However, if the standard caller identification information cannot be provided, without placing the current call on hold, the called party has no information on which to base a decision to accept the call waiting call. The called party may wish to reject low priority calls but interrupt the ongoing call to accept higher priority calls. If the standard caller identification information cannot be provided for the call waiting call, the called party cannot effectively respond to the call waiting call.
Patent application Ser. No. 09/044,574, filed Mar. 19, 1998 and commonly assigned to the assignee of the present application, is also incorporated herein by reference. This patent application discloses a method and system for providing an enhanced call waiting message to a called party when the called party is busy on a previous call and receives a current call. The call waiting message includes a call waiting indicator and an audible representation of information associated with the calling party.
This method and system are effective at handling a call waiting call by providing audible information to the called party based on standard caller identification information. However, if standard caller identification information cannot be provided, the called party cannot effectively respond to the call waiting call.